Ask twelve questions. The answers sort the clinics for you

Two clinics, same city, same procedure, same price. One is excellent. One will cost you a revision and a year of your life.

From the outside they look identical, because both have spent money on looking identical. What separates them is what happens when you ask a specific question, and the good news is that the difference shows up immediately.

Below are twelve questions. For each one, what a good clinic says, and what a bad clinic says. We have heard both columns often enough to write them from memory.

Take it with you. Ask in any order. You will know by question four.

1. "Who will actually perform the procedure?"

Good clinic: a name, a specialty and a number. "Dr García, plastic surgeon, colegiado number 28/XXXXX in Madrid." Often they offer the register link before you ask.

Bad clinic: "One of our specialist team." Pressed further: "We will confirm nearer the date."

The evasion is the answer. A clinic that cannot name the practitioner three weeks out either does not know or does not want you to check.

2. "What is your registration number with the regional health authority?"

Good clinic: reads it off the footer of their own website, because it is printed there.

Bad clinic: "We are fully licensed, of course." Then a pause. Then an offer to send it by email, which does not arrive.

Both answers take the same amount of time to say. Only one of them is checkable, and checking it takes two minutes.

3. "What are the risks for someone with my history?"

Good clinic: asks about your history first, then answers specifically. Smoking, diabetes, previous surgery, medication, BMI, skin type. The answer changes depending on what you said.

Bad clinic: "It is a very safe procedure, we do hundreds." A general reassurance in response to a specific question is not an answer, it is a deflection with a smile on it.

4. "Can I take the consent form home to read?"

Good clinic: hands it over. Informed consent under Ley 41/2002 is meant to be informed, and a document you read at home on a Tuesday is more informed than one you sign on a trolley.

Bad clinic: "You will sign everything on the day, it is all standard." Standard is the word that does the work there. Nothing about your body is standard.

5. "What happens if I am not happy with the result?"

Good clinic: describes a revision policy with a timeframe and a cost, including the cases where it is free and the cases where it is not. Precision here is a sign of a clinic that has been through it.

Bad clinic: "That will not happen." Or, more expensively, a revision priced as a brand new procedure.

The second version means the clinic carries no financial consequence for a poor outcome. Price that in.

6. "Who do I call at 11pm on day three?"

Good clinic: a phone number, a named person, and what the number does at 3am. Some give you the surgeon's mobile. Many use an on call rota. Both are fine. Vagueness is not.

Bad clinic: "Reception is open nine to seven." Complications do not keep office hours, and the most dangerous window after surgery is exactly when reception is closed.

7. "Can I see your results at twelve months, not three?"

Good clinic: has them, and knows why you asked. Three month photographs flatter almost everything. Twelve months is where filler migration, scar maturation, contour irregularity and skin retraction have all had time to show.

Bad clinic: offers more three month photographs, or a different patient, or a testimonial video.

8. "How many of these do you do a month?"

Good clinic: a number, and a comfortable one. Also a willingness to say "not many, this is not my main procedure, here is who I would send you to." That sentence is the single strongest signal of a good clinician you will ever hear.

Bad clinic: "We do everything." A clinic with a menu of forty procedures and four staff is not specialised in any of them.

9. "What is included, and what is not?"

Good clinic: an itemised written quote. Surgeon, anaesthetist, theatre, implants or products by brand and volume, garments, follow up visits, and the named exclusions.

Bad clinic: one number. Then, later, garments are extra, the second follow up is extra, and the post operative massage package was never included.

An itemised quote is also how you compare two clinics honestly. One number against one number tells you nothing.

10. "What product are you using, and how much of it?"

Good clinic: brand, batch, volume in millilitres or units, and the reason for that choice over the alternative. For implants: manufacturer, model, projection, volume, and the implant card you take home.

Bad clinic: "a premium filler" or "the best implants on the market". Unnamed product is unverifiable product.

11. "Can I have a week to think about it?"

Good clinic: yes, obviously, and the price is the same next week. Many good clinics impose their own cooling off period and will not operate on a patient who booked in the same appointment.

Bad clinic: the price moves. Suddenly there is a place that has just come free. Someone mentions that the surgeon is fully booked until March.

This is the highest yield question on the list, because it tests motive rather than knowledge. Ask it even if you already know you want to go ahead.

12. "Where are your hojas de reclamaciones?"

Good clinic: knows, points, and is unbothered. Every establishment open to the public in Spain must hold the official complaint forms.

Bad clinic: confusion, or a suggestion that complaints are handled internally.

The pattern underneath the twelve

Read the good column again and one thing runs through all of it: specificity that can be checked by someone else.

A number in a public register. A named product. An itemised quote. A written consent form. A revision policy with a timeframe. Every single one of those can be verified without taking the clinic's word for it.

The bad column is the opposite, and it is not a coincidence. Reassurance that cannot be checked is the cheapest thing a clinic can produce, and the clinics with the least to offer produce the most of it.

That is the whole test. Not "does this feel right", because bad clinics are extremely good at feeling right. Can somebody else confirm what I have just been told.

What a good clinic will ask you

The traffic runs both ways, and this is the part people miss.

A good clinic interrogates you. Medications, including the ones you forgot. Smoking, honestly. Previous procedures, including the ones you are embarrassed about. What you actually want, in your own words, rather than the procedure you arrived asking for. Whether now is a sensible time in your life.

Some of the best consultations end with a no. Not a soft no that becomes a yes with a discount, an actual no: wrong procedure, wrong time, wrong expectations, come back in a year, or see a different specialist entirely.

A clinic that has never turned anyone away is not a clinic, it is a shop.

Take this with you

If you want the checkable version, our free matching tool runs your answers against the same logic and shows you which clinics hold the units and credentials for what you are asking about, with the reasoning visible.

If you prefer paper, print this page. Twelve questions, two columns, and the only preparation needed is a willingness to sit through the silence after question eleven.

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